The usual academic's blog with posts about work/mom balance, along with a side dish of some occasional theological problems I'm working on...

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Yet...

In honor of yesterday's Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, we ate poached fish and melon risotto. (I got these recipes from this fun cookbook - and yes, melon risotto is actually really good!)

Anyway, we cajoled L. into trying a bite of the fish. (She scarfed down the risotto.) She took just a teeny, tiny piece of fish, one that would fit on the head of a pin and still leave some room, and then declared, "I don't like fish...yet."

It was the "yet" that got to me. She really does see herself as growing bigger and bigger every day, and there are some things she wants to like in the future but she knows she's know quite there: dogs and cats are on that list, so are bicycles, and now, apparently, so is fish.

It makes me think about moral theology and all the times I've heard people declare an entrenched position with no possibility of movement (from both the "left" and the "right"). But so much of moral theology is about practical reasoning, about learning the right thing to do from moral exemplars and learning while doing. It's about being able to turn and turn till you are faithfully following God, to learn not to have hard hearts, but ones open to God. And it takes a lifetime.

So I really admire L's "yet". It speaks to the practical wisdom we all need to cultivate - for a long time, a lifetime - as we navigate our way toward God.